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Citizens hold their own townhall outside the office of Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA08) [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-18
Austin Scott was elected to the US House in the Tea Party wave of 2010. Thanks to the rural character of District 8 (plus gerrymandering), he has held onto that position ever since.
Early on, Scott held townhall meetings. I’m not sure whether they were truly public events, because I learned about them through emails from his office. The second — and last — townhall that I attended gained me a bit of local media attention, and led to two DKos diaries that I will link at the end of this story.
Thanks to a Bluesky post from Rachel Maddow, I learned about an empty-chair townhall meeting scheduled for March 17.
x "He's been absent. I haven't seen him," said Snyder, an Army veteran. "He hasn't had a town hall. It's been a decade." Snyder said the last town hall Rep. Austin Scott held in 2015 was restricted to veterans only, and she wasn't invited despite her military service."
www.13wmaz.com/article/news...
[image or embed] — Rachel Maddow (@maddow.msnbc.com) March 12, 2025 at 12:57 PM
The linked article from the local TV station mentioned that participants would be able to ask their questions to the group, even though the Congressman would not be in attendance. I prepared a list of 12 questions, which did not even begin to scratch the surface of all the chaos that is currently brewing. Here they are:
1. Elon Musk has been acting essentially as an unelected co-president. He did not face the voters. He was not confirmed by the Senate. There was no House budget for the office he holds. Yet he continues to wield more power than just about anyone else in this country. Explain how this is acceptable to you as a member of Congress, and to the rest of us as citizens of Georgia?
2. Elon Musk has swept up every bit of personal information imaginable, on every one of us. How can that possibly be legal? Where is the outcry from Republicans in Congress?
3. Elon Musk and his henchmen, some of whom are teenagers or barely older than 20, have terminated employees throughout our government. Many of these employees have a long record of service, and were “probationary” only in the sense that they had recently changed jobs. Are you willing to stand on the sidelines and let these people fall into unemployment, except for a few people in your district that you’ve advocated for?
4. In your March 10 newsletter, there is an article about the Mana Nutrition plant in Fitzgerald, which employs 136 and manufactures a peanut-based food paste that is distributed wordlwide by USAID. Elon Musk shut down USAID in its entirety, leaving some workers stranded in war zones. Allegedly, taxpayers would save huge sums of money by closing a useless, wasteful agency. But you yourself said,
MANA is an incredible mission-driven organization, and I am thankful to the administration for reinstating their contracts…MANA is committed to ending child malnutrition and is an organization our country should be proud of.
That’s great; I agree with you.
My question: Why aren’t Republicans in Congress standing together in unison to put an end to the ruthless slashing of missions and jobs? Wouldn’t that stance be far more effective than reacting one Congressional district at a time?
5. Three of your major focus points have been agriculture, forestry, and the military. Explain to us how a tariff war helps the farming and forestry communities. Explain why cutting services to veterans is good for our military community.
6. Donald Trump is in the process of tearing down alliances with Canada, Mexico, and Europe; while at the same time aligning himself with Putin and Russia. Explain how this course of action is good for the United States, either in the short term or the long term.
7. Along with the above, Trump’s fondness for Putin is leading him to abandon Ukraine. You are a strong advocate for Ukraine. What are you and your colleagues doing to keep Ukraine properly armed and funded so that they can save their homeland?
8. Also on the subject of foreign relations, Trump is threatening hostile actions against Panama, Canada, and Greenland. Do you believe that the US should take the Panama Canal by force? Should we attempt to make Canada the 51st state? Should we purchase Greenland, or take it by force if a purchase offer is refused? How does any of this help America’s global standing?
9. Very recently, nearly every employee of the Voice of America was fired. Do you support this? If so, why? If not, what are you doing to help these people get their jobs back?
10. According to Marc Elias, the Trump administration is currently in violation of at least three court orders. One violation involves deporting persons to El Salvador without due process, and sending them to labor camps. Do you believe that the rule of law no longer applies, and that a president can ignore court orders at will?
11. Explain why the wealthiest people in this country need more tax breaks, at a time when wealth inequality is already at absurd levels. Also, explain why deficits only seem to matter to Republicans when a Democrat is president.
12. Donald Trump has constantly used his office (and his candidacies) to enrich himself. No conflict of intrest seems to be out of bounds for him. Should that be regarded as acceptable practice from now on, that there are no limits on the sources or amounts of income that a president receives?
Feel free to use these questions in your own quests to obtain answers from elected officials.
Monday dawned with sunshine and blue springtime skies. I made the 30 minute drive, armed with my list of questions. A decent crowd had already assembled, and more arrived after I did.
The organizers of the event welcomed everyone, and laid out the ground rules. They had obtained a permit to protest, but as a courtesy to other businesses in the complex, we were to keep things quiet and polite. The point was made that none of us had been paid to be there, since some in social media were making spurious claims to the contrary.
Local media was present, so the entire event was recorded. The organizers began with their questions, and then invited the rest of us to add our own. The questions were to be written down, so that they could be left with the organizers and passed on to Rep. Scott’s office.
When the microphone was handed to me, I began by saying that it might be partially my fault that Austin Scott was no longer holding public meetings.
In that December 2013 townhall, I had a friendly exchange with Rep. Scott about the Affordable Care Act, which was days away from taking effect. Scott was doing everything he could to repeal ACA, while I was doing everything I could to get covered.
I ended up being on two local television segments as a result of that exchange. Being the hermit that I am, I wasn’t looking for that notoriety, but it came to me.
After that, I was never invited to another Austin Scott event.
Back to the present time, I’m in front of the assembled group with TV cameras pointed at me, holding a list of 12 questions. Knowing that others wanted their turns, I decided to ask three related questions about foreign policy. That would be Questions 6, 7, and 8 on the above list.
Many of the other questions from the audience were about veterans’ benefits, Social Security, and the ransacking of our government by DOGE. After about 50 minutes, the police asked the leaders to speed things up so that the parking lot could be freed up for the nearby businesses.
This morning I got a pleasant surprise: A phone call that Caller ID labeled as “US Capitol.” It was a staffer from Austin Scott’s office, who told me that he had received my questions and that he’d pass them on to Rep. Scott.
While I had the dude on the phone, I made these points:
The people at the protest were very polite, and they asked very intelligent questions which deserve to be answered.
Rep. Scott needs to meet with those people, who are his constituents, and give full answers to their questions instead of going onto friendly venues such as Fox.
If Rep. Scott is unwilling to hold townhalls, at the very least he can issue a press release where he answers all the questions what we presented to him. No talking points, just answers.
I will close with these links. First, a recap of the event from 13WMAZ, which I thought was well done. See for yourself.
Georgia's 8th district rallies for town hall, citing complaints about Rep. Austin Scott
And to tie it all together, these are the two diaries I posted in the wake of the December 2013 townhall. The first one remains my all-time most recommended diary at Daily Kos. It’s never too late to rec a story, so y’all can help me run up the score!
I signed up for health insurance, told my GOP Congressman about it, and made the local news
My $22,678 health insurance gamble, and my second time on the local news
Thanks for sticking around for this rather lengthy diary. What questions would your ask your member of Congress? Have you attended a townhall or a protest?
Here is one more question to ponder:
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